Speech-Language Pathologists: Strategies to Support Students with Reading and Language Deficits (Grades PreK-12)

Specifically Designed for School-Based Speech-Language Pathologists Working with Students in Grades PreK-12

Learn advanced strategies to support reading, language and written skills for students with significant language-literacy disorders, dyslexia and language deficits

Gain insight into accessible education materials that will support your students across settings and situations for reading, vocabulary and written language needs

Explore how intervention can be planned to incorporate literacy skills into special and general education settings

Help students on your caseload/workload develop a positive growth mindset to increase their confidence and success

Practical Strategies and Materials

As a Speech-Language Pathologist, your expertise in oral language and literacy skills makes you an invaluable member of the literacy team at your school. In this NEW seminar, MariBeth Plankers, an experienced Speech-Language Pathologist and Assistive Technology Professional, will share practical methods for assessing and treating reading and writing skills in students with language disorders. You will learn effective, efficient and easy-to-implement techniques to identify children who are at risk for problems with decoding, reading comprehension and written language.

MariBeth will share with you evidence-based practice, from the ASHA (2016) triangle, about the language skills that strongly predict learning deficits across settings and situations and provide strategies that will address these language skills in your daily therapy. This seminar will focus on practical strategies that can be implemented in the context of therapy, as well as generalizing across settings and situations.

You will leave with numerous ideas to assist students with moderate to severe reading, writing and language deficits as well as ways to maximize your effectiveness as an SLP in the school setting.

Ten Key Benefits of Attending

What Every SLP Should Know About Reading Deficits and How They Relate to Students
Learn the different types of language-based reading challenges you will see in students with significant language-literacy disorders, dyslexia (specific reading disorder), receptive and expressive language disorders, and autism spectrum disorders

Determine the Best Methods for Assessment
Address your language, reading comprehension and written language assessments to best uncover a child’s unique language-literacy challenges

Expand Your Role as an SLP in Teaching Decoding and Spelling
Utilize techniques such as morphology and word investigation to help children develop detailed lexical representations that include information about the word meanings, grammatical uses, spelling, and pronunciation within your current vocabulary lessons

Establish Yourself as a Key Team Member for Students with Reading Disorders
Bring your unique expertise in language, literacy, phonology, and pragmatics to the table in your consultations with classroom teachers and reading specialists

Expand Your Toolkit of Therapy Ideas Both Inside and Outside the Classroom Setting
Learn practical and effective techniques to systematically help your students generalize their language and literacy skills in reading across settings and situations

Align Your Therapy with Evidence-Based Practice to Support Literacy Development
Discover what research says about oral language skills that align with evidence-based techniques to build the language skills that will help your students become skilled readers

Utilize the Most Effective Inclusive Practices for Implementing Language and Literacy Skills
Maximize your time as an SLP by learning how to most efficiently use inclusion â€¦ When and how to work in the classroom and ways to coach teachers and paraprofessionals to address your language goals throughout the school day

Implement Universal Design for Learning to Support Student Success
Manage behavior utilizing Universal Design for Learning principles and real-life examples to support students with language disorders

Help Your Students Develop a Growth Mindset
Increase your students’ confidence and success using strategies that teach a growth mindset â€¦ Greatly reduce the fixed mindset your students may have about their ability to grow and learn

Receive an Extensive Handbook and Electronic Resources
Each participant will receive an extensive handbook and electronic resources that address language, reading and writing supports and strategies presented throughout the seminar

Specific Topics

Here's what you'll learn:

Practical ways to incorporate reading and writing goals into all aspects of your oral language therapy

Generalization strategies to help teachers and paraprofessionals carry over the work you are doing in therapy

Various ideas for setting up collaborative treatment programs

Ideas to make therapy motivating, engaging and effective for your students

Access supports from the Assistive Technology Professional to support learners from no-tech to high-tech

A Message from Your Seminar Leader

Dear Colleague:

For many years, I have worked with students who have language disorders which lead to challenges in reading and writing. Knowing my own personal passion for reading and writing, I can’t imagine any skill more important to teach! When I initially started working on literacy skills with students, I was frequently asked why the SLP should have anything to do with a student’s reading issues. Our educational background and expertise in language is all the more reason for us to be highly involved with reading and writing. Over the years our role as SLPs has expanded, and our expertise in language and literacy is now recognized. We are able to assist with spelling, reading fluency and most importantly, reading comprehension and writing language.

It is imperative that we demonstrate a practical approach to addressing literacy skills along with our oral language goals. We don’t need more work, but we can address reading in the context of our current therapy programs and provide effective strategies to teach other specialists what we know about language and literacy.

I have developed this seminar to share with you the best practices that we, as SLPs, can use to support students with language and literacy deficits. We will explore the alignment of oral language and literacy skills and how valuable your expertise is to the school IEP team. I will address the different types of reading challenges that your students with language disorders encounter, from recognizing the words on the page to understanding the meaning of the text. The emphasis will be on practical, doable methods to evaluate students and to develop individualized planned programs that may be implemented through direct intervention, the general education classroom and consultation.

My goal in this seminar is to send you back to your schools empowered with many new ideas you can put to practice immediately! We can lower the barriers in order to raise the level of success for our students.

Sincerely,
MariBeth Plankers, M.S. CCC-SLP, ATP

P.S.I know how valuable your time is, so my focus for the day will be on sharing practical strategies that work in today’s schools with today’s students.

Who Should Attend

School-Based Speech-Language Pathologists working with students in Grades PreK-12

ASHA - CEUs

This course is offered for 0.50 ASHA CEUs (Intermediate level, Professional area).

Special Benefits of Attending

You'll Receive an Extensive Resource Handbook
Each participant will receive an extensive resource handbook specifically designed for this seminar. The handbook includes:

Comprehensive descriptions of all the skills and strategies addressed throughout the seminar

A review of research in reading and written language, including an extensive reference list

Engaging resources to address a variety of the skills discussed within the handbook and electronically

An extensive list of helpful materials and programs

An appendix with the strategies outlined in this program applied to literature used in the classroom

Meet and Share
This seminar provides a wonderful opportunity for participants to meet and share ideas with other speech-language pathologists interested in learning strategies to support their students with reading and language deficits.

Consultation Available
MariBeth Plankers will be available at the seminar for consultation regarding your questions and the unique needs of your own speech-language pathology program.

Semester
Credit Option:
Graduate level professional development credit is available with an additional fee and completion of follow up practicum activities. Details for direct enrollment with Brandman University, part of the Chapman University system, will be available at the seminar.

Meet
Inservice Requirements:
At the end of the program, each attendee will receive
a certificate of participation that may be used to verify hours of participation in
meeting continuing education requirements.